ways_back_room | DE: Was it Albuquerque?

Howard: Resolving not to end his argument with his father, leading him to attend CalTech instead of Case Western or University of Chicago. There could have been a path where Howard became just another Detroit auto industry bigwig.

Cyborg: I suppose Cy could have not been in the car the day of the accident, but it feels like it was something he couldn't avoid. Maybe the big moment was when he decided to go outside and see what teh hubbub was when Starfire arrived in town, followed by the Gordian spaceship. He might have never learned what he could do.

Kirk: Stealing the Enterprise to find Spock's body. He still would have found a way to honor Sarek's request, but the chain of events without the Enterprise might have led to the doom of Earth, if Jim didn't happen to be offworld in a Klingon ship capable of traveling back in time under duress. Something worth pondering, maybe.

Gibbs: If he hadn't jumped ship, he would either died in the service or retired back to England. Either way, things would be a lot less interesting.

Charlie: Putting on the mask in the first place. He could have done that first case without the mask, gotten the same facts for the news story he was working on, and stuck with just his career as a reporter. Still would have faced the same end, though, since he would have kept smoking.

Knox: Can't really think of one for him. I suppose he could have stayed at his old job, but his life would more or less the same.

Maybe the big moment was when he decided to go outside and see what teh hubbub was when Starfire arrived in town, followed by the Gordian spaceship

What happened when he saw Starfire for the first time? I would think that it would be a revelation for any straight male. :-)

Don't forget that cartoon Starfire is a lot less of a "bubble bod" and also wears more clothes. Also, I think at that time Cy wasn't really noticing girls, being so down in the dumps.

http://a1enzo.dreamwidth.org/1224.html

It has also been observed that when things go south in ReBoot season 2 and plot starts happening in earnest, it can all be traced to Mike the TV tuning to the wrong channel at the wrong time. And, of course, if Matrix hadn't carelessly left his icon in Game sprite mode, my pup would not exist and the Net would have been destroyed by Daemon.

A phrase that came up a few times during the OOMs of Gordon's original run through HL 1 canon:

"Why, oh, why didn't I take the job at Aperture Science?"

One evening when she wasn't feeling well, Rae randomly decided to go out to the lake to be alone with her thoughts and maybe figure out what was bothering her.

She promptly got kidnapped by vampires.

If she had done anything else - she considers going for a walk, going to the library, just going home, etc. - she wouldn't have been kidnapped, she wouldn't have met Con, she wouldn't have rediscovered her magic-handling abilities. CANON WOULDN'T HAVE HAPPENED.

Shulkie punching Tony Stark off the Helicarrier. It marked her return to an independent practice and resulted in a huge change in her life. She took up bounty hunting instead of practicing law. She subsequently returned to the law but that punch changed her world view.

Jess: What if Lindsay McCabe was trying out for Broadway instead of that show in San Francisco? Carol Danvers likely would have died as San Francisco didn't have any other heroes at that time. I could go farther with Carol but her missing from the MU makes me sad.

Theresa Cassidy might have ended up in the evil clutches of her uncle longer and never given a chance for the good life, thus altering the X-Factor.

If Lindsay had gotten the role, she and Jess would never have had a need to go to Madripor and so never would have met Logan.

Brimstone: Bad things I can't go into since it would spoil the canon.

Hank: Not really a physical turn, but what if Hank had listened to Raven when he offered her the "cure" instead of being wrapped up in his own dreams and fears? Would they still be together? Would she have stayed with Charles instead of Erik? Would Hank have followed her and joined Erik? Hard to say.

Quinlan: If padawan Quin hadn't wandered down that corridor, had he chosen a different path, he woudln't have seen a young Twi'lek being attacked by a Wampa, woulnd't have jumped in and saved her. Which means Aayla Secura would have died and thus Quin would have later fallen to the Dark Side and Count Dooku might just have won the Clone Wars himself. Quin may not be the best fighter but he would have been a terrifying assassin and spy for the Dark Side. I mean, he walked right by a Jedi Master, who was on guard, using a force cloak, meaning he could be the invisible killer not even Jedi Masters could sense.

OK, enough for now. More later maybe. = ]

Edited 2014-03-24 15:10 (UTC)

Why is it always the negative with you? How about this scenario, instead of feeling sorry for myself and hiding from the world, I keep contact with my friends when my powers went wonky. Did PI jobs for them as they needed them, went to their birthdays, that sort of thing. The skrulls lose the perfect cover for their queen and maybe the invasion fails before it's even begun. Which means Osborn never got to lead the Avengers and what was left of SHIELD after the invasion, which means Asgard never falls cause the Sentry lost his shit, which might even have prevented that whole thing with the Asgardian Fear God. And maybe, just maybe, without the skrulls, Orborn, and the global fear attack, we'd have trusted that the mutants knew more about the Phoenix and let them lead on that one.

Yeah, maybe I wouldn't have gotten my powers back but damn it would have been worth it.

The thought of Sith Quinlan the assassin is scary, yes. *shudders*

It is kind of sobering. He may not be the duelist Obi-Wan, Yoda, Dooku or Mace Windu are but it's hard to fight what you can't see or even know is there.

And for those who aren't familiar with force skills, force steal hides your presence within the Force (Obi-Wan used this to hide from Vader and the Emperor for years on Tatooine) but force cloak hides you physically and in the force. It's almost as good as invisibility.

*nods*

Ah, I hadn't realized that Force steal was the name of the 'hide your presence in the Force ability'. Good to know!

I'm pretty sure I am remembering that right. Wookiepedia is likely the final say. = ]

(Quin's mun in another journal.)

Ah, wookiepedia. I would be so lost without it.

Nice journal name. :-) New character for Milliways?

Wookiepedia has saved and confused me on many accounts. =}

And yes, a possible new voice for Milliways. Not sure has I haven't really gotten a chance to play her anywhere. She's from Rat Queens, which is a comic that just started 5 issues ago and is what you would get if Quentin Tarantino had decided to write a D&D fantasy. Definitely worth checking out! It's published by Image Comics so you even get a PDF to download when you buy from them digitally and at $2.99 for the latest issue and $1.99 for past, it's affordable crack. I put a link to the Rat Queens URL at Image in Betty's profile.

*nods* Thanks for the information. I may check it out. :-)

*walks in and holds out a compass*

*waits for Claudia to come in and slap it from your hands*

There's a couple of them for Ellen. The biggest one to come to mind is the moment when she encountered Paladin Hoss and his fellows on a training run in the Falls Church ruins. She'd been treated pretty badly by the Brotherhood Outcasts, the only other people she'd ever seen in power armor. She came very close to bolting back into the ruins when she first saw Hoss. If she'd done that, things would have been a lot tenser and more unpleasant when she encountered Lyons' Pride outside GNR, and I don't think she'd have wound up being asked to join the Brotherhood. They'd have been grateful to her for some of the things she did, but she'd have never wound up with them as a member, which means nobody would have been particularly inclined to think the RobCo factory could be restored to working condition, which means there would never have been anything to offer to the Pitt to get them to stop taking slaves- among other things.

So, fun revelation last week. Amascut accompanied her brother Icthlarin to Freneskae to recruit the Mahjarrat. Previous canon hinted that Icthlarin recruited them on his own. Which is half true. He brought them to Gielinor on his own.

"I do not know what Icthlarin thought of this, but his companion Amascut seemed dismayed by our ways and walked out of our village towards the volcano. We did not see her again." -- Bilrach's memories

Because... well... the volcano erupted soon afterward and everyone got the hell out of there. Icthlarin didn't even bother finding out what happened to Amascut, according to Bilrach. So, Amascut was abandoned on a planet foreign to her to deal with an erupting volcano and very possibly a pissed off elder god. It was about then that the Goddess of Rebirth and Judge of the Dead started turning into the Goddess of Destruction. I still have no idea about how she made her way back.

That was so long ago, I don't want to speculate too much about what would have happened if she had stayed put and voiced her objections, or if she turned left instead of right, or even if she never went to Freneskae or never returned to Gielinor. Possibly Gielinor might of ended up dominated by Cthonian demons, or maybe by Avernic demons, or maybe more patriarchal societies, or maybe Gielinor would be seriously advanced technologically by now. Then we would have demons and vampires and humans and lizardmen all exploring the universe together in their magically powered spaceships. Also, something about dragons. *shrug*

Hahahaha. Erm. So. For two of mine, they can destroy the DW universe just as fast as Donna.

Ace: Instead of resisting, she took Kane's offer on Iceworld and became one of his assassins - the first job being to kill Mel. Left without a partner, the Doctor became more reclusive, and because he wasn't trying to hunt down Ace's Fenric connection, wasn't there when Fenric awoke in Scotland - and before the end of WWII the world devolved into primordial ooze.

Oswin: Didn't fight the conversion to Dalek. Within a day she had the shield down around the planet. Within two a fleet of insane Daleks left the Asylum, to rampage across the universe. Alternately, she did fight conversion with everything she had, and lasted a year against her captors... but lost it when the Doctor insisted, after everything she'd done, that she was just a Dalek. So she decided that he must know, he was the Predator, after all. The Doctor, Amy, and Rory died in the Asylum. An entire town in the American midwest disappears into the dust inexplicably. After that it's a debate as to whether the world is destroyed after the cube invasion, or if that invasion is defeated by the Great Intelligence because at that point the entirety of humanity is basically a hive mind slaved to him. Even odds.

Clara: Listened to River and didn't walk into the Doctor's time stream. The Doctor never leaves Gallifrey because he tried to steal the wrong TARDIS.

Katya: Basically, bad things: SPOILER! Instead of holding back the ghosts of the Others when they go to attack Anton, she willingly joins in. Anton never makes it back from the deepest level of the Twilight. His daughter, the next Grand Sorceress, grows up without his influence, instead relying on the mother who while doting, has an extreme tendency to be over-emotional and dramatic.

Sam: Never joins the MTC - she joins the farm girls instead. Foyle retires a year before the war ends, and cannot be convinced to come back, and never goes on to... SPOILERS. join MI6... and Sam, who had a fling with a RAF pilot and ended up with a baby, never did either.

Balthazar: Cannot bear to put his beloved in the Grimhold, and tries desperately to free her from Morgana's influence. Fails, because he really isn't a match for Morgana, and Merlin's two loyal apprentices die that night. All hell breaks out on Earth, and humanity is enslaved to the Morganians.

Annnnd I'll do the rest later, I am needed in the clinic. :(

I keep trying to think what might have happened had Anton been on a different train that the one Svetlana was on in the first book and the best I can see if Moscow going boom from her curse as she'd never had met him and thus they wouldn't have had the connection enabling him to talk her down.

Canon, what canon?

I have a 'turn left' moment for Madame Thénardier, among all my charries -- the entire story canonically hangs on the fact that she was sitting, not standing, in one particular moment, when Fantine comes with tiny!Cosette to the Thénardiers' inn at Monfermeil:

If this crouching woman had stood upright, her lofty stature and her frame of a perambulating colossus suitable for fairs, might have frightened the traveller at the outset, troubled her confidence, and disturbed what caused what we have to relate to vanish. A person who is seated instead of standing erect--destinies hang upon such a thing as that.

[[from here]]

The two that immediately spring to mind:

Ichabod never changed sides in the Revolutionary War, killed Arthur Bernard and went on to be a Loyalist hero. He never married Katrina, eventually returned to England and lived and died in the 18th century, thus never meeting Abbie and coming into his destiny as a Witness.

Gavroche listened to Valjean and didn't go back to the barricade that night, thus surviving but being left sad and alone. Alternately, he wouldn't leave to take the letter, Valjean never showed up, and Marius died with the others and broke Cosette's heart.

If Felix hadn't been on the pier or whatever to get swept into the river, immediately pre-canon, at least the second game, and probably all of canon, would not have happened.

Fluttershy... it's easy to construct "for want of a nail" situations in this verse, but I'm not sure that any of them are based on a Fluttershy choice.

And Kain... I'm thinking failing to fully heelface at the Tower of Zot, leaving Cecil to face Valvalis/Barbariccia without him, but I don't know that Zemus could actually succeed without Cecil being around, so...

The one that immediately comes to mind for Moiraine is the point at which she makes the decision to go look for the Dragon Reborn. It's described in New Spring, the prequel to Book 1 of the Wheel of Time, for those who are wondering where in canon that happened. What seemed like it would have been a very brief interlude sort of trip to buy time to evade certain political events in her homeland led to her bonding her Warder (Lan Mandragoran) and then working with her best friend (Siuan Sanche) in secret over two decades -- and only then did canon actually even start.

So, if she hadn't done that, and consequently hadn't found Rand al'Thor after 20 years of searching, then about 14 books of canon would have gone differently... and Moiraine would have very likely become Queen of Cairhien, a fate that she very much did not want.

Edited (more details added) 2014-03-24 17:53 (UTC)

Near the end of Chapter 1, Lucas tells Flint and Alec that he wanted to go with Claus but was turned down. If he had gone along, who knows what would've happened?

For one thing, Lucas would've learned about his PSI much sooner than he did. After that, pretty much all the possibilities that were open before are open again. One or both of them could fall off the cliff, die, and be made into chimeras for the Pigmask Army. If both happened, Porky would win no question. One or both of them could have been horribly mauled by the mecha-drago, which could lead to either the Pigmask Army or Flint and Alec finding them. If a situation happened in which both of them died and neither was brought to the Pigmask Army, the rest of canon pretty much wouldn't happen since Porky can't pull the Needles himself. And who knows what Flint would do if that happened. I'm thinking suicide by mecha-drago is probably likely.

In the extremely unlikely event that both twins survive, either by being found before encountering the mecha-drago or the even more unlikely event that they actually defeat her, I imagine it'd be a very different household. Flint probably wasn't a physically abusive dad, but when consumed with the grief of Hinawa's death, he lashes out. Sure, he'd be relieved that his boys are safe and sound at first. But then that blame comes creeping in. Why did they survive and Hinawa didn't? They wanted to go on that vacation in the first place. It's their fault. And now Flint has to spend the rest of his life looking at these reminders. This is semi-related to some of my theories on why Flint neglected Lucas for those 3 years he spent looking for Claus.

And I wonder if that'd be noticed. If Isaac or Bronson would notice a black eye on Claus or a bruise on Lucas. And maybe they'd tell them, "There's another way. You can come with us and be safe. The Pigmask Army wouldn't let anything like that happen to you." And Porky gets what he wants anyway.

Aang ran away from home.

Splinter ran into the turtles as babies, and he could have let them be...or eaten them.

I sometimes wonder how different Mirage Turtle canon would have gone if Mike hadn't accidentally teleported him and his brothers to the otherside of the galaxy.

Or if Raph hadn't run from NoHo to start City at War.

If Bumi hadn't joined the United Forces.

If Lydia hadn't gone outside during the winter prom.

If Simon Petrikov hadn't bought an antique crown from a traveler.

If Steve hadn't decided to try to join the army one more time, or if Dr. Erskine hadn't overheard his argument with Bucky.

If Sadie hadn't gone to the party where she met Frank.

If Bilbo hadn't been smoking his pipe outside that day, or if he hadn't found the Ring in Gollum's cave.

If Cecil hadn't gone to the town meeting Carlos called.

If Merlin stayed with his mother rather than going to Camelot.

Hm, this is an interesting question.

For Will, in my favorite version of canon, if Will hadn't stolen from Robin's uncle, he never would have become connected to him.

Charles, if he hadn't spoken to Moira. Raven found him so its more her choice than his.

Ivan, I can't think of one off the top of my head, but there probably is one.

Sameth, if he hadn't run away from Belisaere, he never would have met up with Lirael and helped save the Old Kingdom.

William, if he hadn't snuck out to join his father to take Ben Wade, the entire plot would have ended differently. I'm not sure exactly how but that's a turning point.

Moist, if he hadn't left Uberwald then he wouldn't be where he is now.

Jane, I don't think there's a point for her.

Demeter, if she had agreed to go along with Kore's wedding everything would be different.

Tumnus, if he had turned Lucy in though we see him making that conscious choice. Hard to imagine him not doing it.

The Pirate King, if he hadn't taken Frederic on.

Once upon an alternate time, a farm boy decided that his future meant more to him than kissing a pretty girl and did all his chores responsibly. The tl;dr version: most of Calderon, possibly including Tavi, is killed a few days later in a Marat incursion. Eventually Alera crumbles under civil war for a while and while it may come back, it is not stronger for it. They do, however, try to expand, and some day someone does something stupid and wakes the Vord Queen in the Wax Forest.

There are a lot of other decisions he or other people make that are similarly influential, but those aren't little decisions. They're known to carry weight when they happen. Not the first one. If Tavi had been responsible instead of hormonal, one day most of Carna is probably eaten by Vord.

Instead, in the first two pages of canon, after a G-rated seduction, Tavi gets flowers for a pretty girl.

Carol: If she never walked into the Air Force recruitment office then she'd never have learned to fly, completed her degree, or gone on to the career at NASA that put her in contact with the alien device that gave her her superpowers. She'd probably be married, still living in Boston, and pretty bored with whatever job she could get with just a high school education.

Stiles: If he decided to stay at home and play video games instead of dragging Scott out to look for dead bodies in the woods then Scott wouldn't be a werewolf and basically nothing on the show would happen, except that Beacon Hills would continue to be a town with a freakishly high murder rate.

Mary: If she didn't sleep with the Turkish attache, or, alternately, if she accepted Matthew's first proposal. Either way, Mary avoids being engaged to a douche, years of pining, and a constant threat of a ruined reputation hanging over her head. Also, her husband doesn't die the same day their first child is born.

I think only Mary's life is definitively better in the alternate 'verse.

Headcanon:

If Natasha hadn't decided to linger in a library on 23rd August, 1942, then she and her mother would have been in their apartment when the Nazis started bombing Stalingrad. Which means her mother wouldn't have been in the open to get hit by shrapnel, which means fourteen-year-old Natasha would not have been an orphan left to her own devices, so would have gone to the refugee camp and never been recruited by the NKVD.

Alternatively, if she had lingered even longer, she probably wouldn't have made it to a bomb shelter, and would have been killed by either bombs or the resulting fire-storm.

Things would have been veeeery different either way.

Edited 2014-03-25 00:05 (UTC)

Jason - Jay's would have been someone else's turn left moment. Life would have been very different if Bruce reached him before he died. A slow recovery, possibly never really recovering from the brutal beating at the hands of the Joker. Getting a lot of therapy and working with Barbara Gordon as another Oracle and ground support for the Bats.

Olivier - Not following his father's faith after his mother's death. Daoud would have taken over his mother's stall, continuing her work as a herbalist in Antioch. Chances are he would have been killed during the second crusade.

Inspector Detector - He chooses not to recruit Rex Racer into the Racer X program. As a result, Rex is actually killed at Casa Cristo rather than David using the race to fake Rex's death. Angry with himself to failing to recognise how much trouble the young man was in, David recklessly throws himself into his work and is shot in the line of duty.

Clem: Chose to ride outside the car in her Statue of Liberty costume during a parade...which led to her death.

Dixie: was handed a stolen baby by Pete and discovered she was guarding China's emperor. She did such a good job that it won her a trip overseas for a publicity tour where she was heralded as a 'Golden Angel'.

Juliet: Just happened to steal Shawn's seat in a diner eight years ago. Look where that got her.

Pinkie: Happened to witness Rainbow Dash's sonic rainboom, which inspired her lifelong quest to bring joy to others.

Eponine: Is a victim of her parents' terrible business decisions, and takes a bullet in the chest intended for Marius.

DE: Was it Albuquerque?

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Oh man. Only her entire canon.

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